


Last Resort

by Katie_Madison



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Disillusionment, F/M, Freeform - HanLeia, Freeform - HanLuke, Infidelity, Kylo Ren Backstory, M/M, POV Luke Skywalker, Pre-Sequel trilogy, Seduction to the Dark Side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katie_Madison/pseuds/Katie_Madison
Summary: No matter how bad Luke, Leia, and Han might have been at raising a young Ben Solo, their negligence couldn't have been the only reason behind his descent to the Dark Side....So, whatwas?
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Last Resort

**Author's Note:**

> I could never really wrap my head around Ben Solo's descent into Kylo Ren.
> 
> Here's my take on what it might look like for him if a Han and Luke affair, and a broadly disingenuous Rebel and Light Side, made him choose to go Dark instead.
> 
> Oh, how upsetting.
> 
> [I accidentally posted and deleted an unedited version of this earlier in the month. So sorry about the confusion!!!]

Ben Solo had been the light of Luke’s life ever since he was born. As the starry-eyed child created by his two favorite people in the galaxy, Luke had had little choice but to adore him completely. Ben had Leia’s presence, making fast friends with all of the Rebel Alliance and Jedi trainee children with his resourcefulness and imaginative dreams for the future, and making everyone else awe at his leadership. He also had Han’s insight and care, his gangly arms unbearably gentle when wrapped around the waist of the handsome pilot academy boy whom Ben always sought first when they arrived and last when they left; his dark eyes shining sadly on Luke’s behalf when he spotted his lonely Jedi Master staring wistfully at his parents across crowded Rebel Base dancefloors. 

Ben Solo, however, had also been the darkness of Luke’s life ever since he was born. As the conflicted child of a Rebel leader, who never failed to talk the pants off any politician (though she struggled to communicate with her husband and son), and the smuggling captain of the Millennium Falcon, who never failed to stir the hearts of everyone he smiled at (and their resentment when he left without so much as a goodbye), Ben was hard for Luke to even look at sometimes.

* * *

Ben Solo grew to resent Han Solo more than anyone else by the time he left with the Knights of Ren. He had observed how his father couldn’t see him without seeing his failure to be faithfully devoted to Leia, his failure to walk away from his marriage before they had had their mistake of a son, and above all else, his failure to admit to himself that he was still in love with Luke Skywalker, no matter how much his reputation as a womanizing ladies’ man protested otherwise.

Ben Solo, of course, shouldn’t have been able to _know that_ , so even though Luke suspected what his nephew knew, he looked away. He held his suspicion inside himself as his own dark burden, no matter how much Ben's knowing eyes (Leia's eyes, really) followed him like a predator around their monastery and left Luke so completely ashamed. The Jedi Master recoiled inwards and fatally missed the significance of interrogating _where_ _exactly_ Ben could have even heard such a thing in the first place, because it wasn’t as though Han and Luke’s past relationship had been public knowledge. Luke _should_ have been curious, no matter his shame; it was unforgivably selfish and stupid of him not to have asked. Looking back, Luke can barely believe how much of a coward he had been, so distant from the man who had thrown his lightsaber down before Darth Vader’s feet – confident in his father’s goodness, staking his whole life on it. Who was he anymore? Had he really been so ashamed that Ben had found about... about his-, about their-, about _them_ that he had let the galaxy go to ruin? If only Luke had known **who** had told Ben about them, had known **who still existed** in the galaxy, he could have done so much more, but he didn't, so he couldn't.

Ben Solo quickly created a name for himself as a torturous mindbreaker, and his innate talents for Jedi mindprobes eventually made Luke wonder if his nephew hadn't originally discovered... their _secret_ in Han’s own subconscious. With Ben's skills, Han would have never even felt his son searching through him if Ben hadn’t wanted him to. Han would have never even realized the information he had nonconsensually divulged to his son about the ways he used to kiss Luke Skywalker after the Battle of Yavin, on Hoth, and in the Falcon herself. Han would have never known the secrets Ben resentfully, disgustedly held inside him until the day he finally killed him. 

Ben Solo, either way, had felt betrayed, and Luke and Han had done nothing about it.

* * *

Ben Solo’s heart ached with the knowledge of Han and Luke’s true relationship, and he began wondering what love even was if his parents had barely felt it for each other and lied to each other instead. He began wondering why he was deluding himself into believing he could feel it for the dark-haired pilot boy when it was so easy to make him forget that Ben even existed. He began wondering what exactly Luke Skywalker could teach him when he refused to be honest about anything. Luke had let the three of them – no, drag him in and it was _four_ of them – get into this mess without doing anything to stop it. ~~Some Jedi Master he was.~~

Ben Solo had not turned to the Dark Side because of its innate appeal to him. Luke knew Ben’s heart, knew what it liked and loathed, knew it despised the Dark Side no matter what anyone, Ben included, said otherwise. 

Ben Solo was no Anakin Skywalker - with his rage from not being able to protect his mother from her death, self-loathing from leaving her behind in the first place, contempt for how Yoda had disregarded his death visions about his beloved, his only, Padmé Amidala, hatred for the Jedi Council for telling him not to hold on to his emotions without understanding that his emotions were the only things Anakin had ever had that they couldn’t steal from him when he was _a slave_. When Luke died and joined his father in the Force, it was clear that the frenetic, unstable nature of Anakin's life had made him an unfairly easy conduit for darkness. Anakin had been doomed from the start. But that was not true for Ben. Not at all. 

Ben Solo had been the light of Luke Skywalker’s life, after all, and the light of Leia Organa and Han Solo’s lives too. They could have - _should have -_ stopped this. 

Ben Solo, finally, had only turned to the Dark Side as a last resort, because he had hated the hypocrisy of the Light Side more. 

**Author's Note:**

> That Ben Solo character... Perhaps I'll delve into his paradoxes a little more at some point.
> 
> I read a few of ZenyZootSuit's Star Wars works (all great, btw) and particularly appreciated their take on a possible Poe Dameron/Ben Solo childhood crush sort of dynamic and was inspired to include it here, though in all honestly, it could just as well have been an original male character.
> 
> Just an added layer of sadness.
> 
> (If you would like some nicer SkySolo /HanLuke to cheer yourself up, do be sure to check out my series reading between the stars: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645984!)
> 
> Be sure to leave kudos, comments, and bookmarks : )


End file.
